Reid Wiseman, commander of NASA’s Artemis II mission, has revealed that he briefly feared he and his crew might be stranded in space after their spacecraft travelled farther from Earth than expected.
Wiseman, 50, and three fellow astronauts were tasked with flying around the Moon before using its gravity to slingshot the spacecraft back toward Earth.
However, as the crew passed over the Moon’s far side and approached the maximum distance NASA had predicted, the nautical-mile reading on their onboard odometer continued to rise.
The Artemis II astronauts ultimately reached 219,669 nautical miles from Earth—252,756 standard miles—setting a new record for the greatest distance humans have ever travelled and surpassing the mark established by Apollo 13 in 1970.
Speaking at the Starmus Festival in Tenerife on Saturday, Wiseman said mission control in Houston had told the crew their maximum distance would be 219,667 nautical miles.
“I was watching this number, and I saw it hit 219,667, and I thought, ‘Great, this is the farthest we will be from Earth, and the next number I will see will be 219,666—we’ll be going home,’” he said. “But about three minutes later, I saw 219,668. It went up. I was like, ‘Huh, that’s weird.’”
“And then about three minutes later, it goes to 219,669, and that was the moment that I felt real fear because I thought we had just gone too far. We’re never going to come home, and so I was very scared.”
For another tense three minutes, the astronauts watched the odometer closely. Then the figure finally began to fall, confirming that the spacecraft had turned and was heading back toward Earth.
Artemis II astronauts (l-r) mission specialist Christina Koch, mission specialist Jeremy Hansen, pilot Victor Glover and commander Reid Wiseman
The Artemis II crewed lunar mission lifts off from Pad 39B at Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida, on April 1, 2026
The crew celebrated the turning point. Wiseman said: “I knew there was a good chance we might make it.”
Even so, the possibility that the Artemis II astronauts might not return safely was something the crew had seriously considered before launch.
Mission specialist Jeremy Hansen said the astronauts had discussed the possibility of a catastrophic error two days before takeoff. He added that the crew was “at peace” with the risks involved in the historic mission.
“Like, if Reid’s number had just kept growing and we knew we weren’t coming home, but we were going to be alive for a while, how do you sit comfortably, not knowing what the future is going to be?” Hansen said.
“And by launch the crew was at peace, not because we’re brave, it’s not bravado, it’s because we had an acceptance of whatever came, we would do the best, or our time would end.”
Commander Wiseman, pilot Victor Glover and mission specialists Christina Koch and Jeremy Hansen of the Canadian Space Agency launched from Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida, on April 1, 2026.
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The astronauts travelled a total of 700,237 miles before splashing down in the Pacific Ocean off San Diego at 5.07pm local time on April 10, exactly according to schedule.
All four astronauts received Stephen Hawking medals for science communication at the Starmus Festival, which was founded by Queen guitarist Sir Brian May, who holds a PhD in astrophysics from Imperial College London.
During the crew’s first press conference after returning to Earth, Wiseman also described the spiritual effect of his time in space. He was responding to a question from Kristin Fisher, host of the space-focused YouTube channel The Endless Void.
“I’m not really a religious person but there was really no other avenue for me to explain anything or experience anything, so I asked for the [ship’s] chaplain to just come visit us for a minute,” he said.
‘I’d never met him before in my life, but I saw the cross on his collar and I just broke down in tears.
‘It’s very hard to fully grasp what we just went through….when the sun eclipsed behind the moon, I think all four of us…I turned to Victor [Glover, the Artemis pilot] and I said, “I don’t think humanity has evolved to the point of being able to comprehend what we are looking at right now,” because it was otherworldly and it was amazing.’
The Artemis II crew module separates from its service module on April 10 as it prepares for re-entry to Earth following a flyby of the Moon
Victor Glover (left) and Christina Koch (right) – the first black person and the first woman to visit the Moon – are photographed on the flight deck of USS John P. Murtha after splashdown
Artemis II commander Reid Wiseman and Canadian Space Agency astronaut Jeremy Hansen – the first non‑American to travel beyond low Earth orbit – are also pictured on the flight deck
Wiseman told The Telegraph that he experienced ‘Earthsickness’ during the voyage, which was the first manned mission to the Moon since Apollo 17 in 1972.
‘You’re looking at an Earth that is so tiny it can fit underneath your thumb, and around it is total blackness, it’s just complete, infinite black space, and that little tiny dot down there is our home.
‘And the feeling I mostly had was, I want to see my kids again, I want to be reunited with my friends, I want to sit on green grass and eat fresh salad, and just experience life on that planet again. It was overwhelming. Instead of homesickness, it was Earthsickness.’
The Artemis II astronauts experienced deceleration forces four times stronger than gravity as they re–entered Earth’s atmosphere during their final 13–minute descent into the Pacific.
The Orion crew capsule containing the astronauts separated from Artemis II’s cylindrical service module 34 minutes before splashdown.
At 22,000ft, Orion’s small parachutes known as drogues deployed before the main parachutes opened a minute later allowing it to touchdown in the Pacific at 20 miles per hour.
After more than an hour’s delay because of strong ocean currents, the four astronauts clambered into a dinghy and were hoisted into helicopters which flew them to the USS John P. Murtha.
